Is God still loving when a new mother dies?

Recently, I lost one of my best friends very unexpectedly. She gave birth to a beautiful, healthy baby boy and about an hour afterwards started hemorrhaging. She went in for emergency surgery and over the next few days was in complete kidney failure and a coma. They tried to treat her for her conditions and when they tried to bring her out of the coma the doctors discovered that she had experienced a seizure and brain damage. They determined she would never wake up again and took her off life support a few days after giving birth.

I have been struggling with how a ‘loving’ God could allow something like this to happen. The Bible tells us that God loves us in many different instances. However, if God really loved everyone how could he allow my friend to die and leave her husband a single dad.

If I think of the definition of love, I think about someone who would do anything for another person, who cares because of who the person is and not what they have done. I do not see any of this or of any biblical references I have read of love apparent in this situation.

I have been struggling with this for a while and I just keep thinking that it would have been so easy for God to heal her. I keep thinking that if God really loved her he would have healed her. Instead she died and God did nothing.

This is my faith hurdle. —M

Callie

Dear “M”,
My heart is aching for you for right now. I can’t begin to tell you how much my heart resonates with yours. I too lost my best friend post-delivary. I saw your post earlier in the day, and have been mulling over these painful memories and searching for what I might say that could be of comfort to you.

It was 2004 and we were both expecting our first babies. It was so much fun to experience the ups and downs of pregnancy together. We were only 4 weeks apart. She went into labor early – they discovered she had HELLP syndrome. She went into a coma hours after delivery, and was on life support for several days before they made the decision to take her off.

This was the first time I had lost someone this close to me – the first time my beliefs, my foundation was not just shaken, but completely shattered! During the days she was on life support, I clung to the hope that God would heal her – use her as a tool to show His glory! I begged and pleaded, and I trusted God to come through…I mean why wouldn’t He? He wouldn’t dare create this tiny life then take away it’s mother! Why would He have even allowed her to get pregnant in the first place? Surely He was planning to use this to display His power and greatness!

Then, she was gone. I was honestly shocked! And like a small child who had asked her father for something, and was denied, I stormed off to the “bedroom” of my heart and slammed the door. Although I went to church in the following weeks and tried to smile and nod as people told me “God is good”, inside I was angry, confused and scared. Good? Is God good? Is “this” good? Could “good” and my friend’s death even go in the same sentence? I questioned everyone…doctors, nurses, even my friend (why didn’t she go the hospital sooner?), but ultimately, it was God. He could have healed her, and He chose not to.

But is He good? Or as you ask, “is He loving”? I believe that the Bible is God’s Word, and that it is truth! Here’s what it says…..”God is good, and everything he does is good” (Psalm 119:68)

God’s plan supersedes human error or effort. When God reminds Job of His control over everything, Job replies “I know that you can do all things, and that no purpose of yours can be thwarted”. (Job 42:2)

Your friends days were ordained for her “before one of them came to be”. (Psalm 139:16)

In Nancy Leigh Demoss’ book “Lies Women Believe”, she shares this,…”The truth is, God is good. Whether or not His choices seem good to us, He is good. Whether or not we feel it, He is good. Whether or not it seems true in my life or yours, He is still good”…..”A great many things in God’s divine providences do not look to the eye like goodness, but faith sits down before mysteries such as these, and says ‘the Lord is good, therefore all He does must be good, no matter how it looks. I can wait for His explanations’”.

Friend, I know that in the midst of pain we want to hear something more than just “God is good”. But when it comes down to it, that will be the core of you’re healing. You will not get answers (until heaven) to all the “whys” that flood your mind daily. You grieve, pouring your sorrow, anger, and hurt at God’s feet. (I love reading in the Psalms where time and time again David is open with God, asking “why” and “how long”). God is not shocked at you questioning Him…seek Him out. Healing will come, but not overnight, and not fully until our redemption and His plans are complete and He takes us home.

We can choose to believe what God’s Word says, that He IS good, that He loves us more than we can fathom, and that He has a plan,… or we can can reject it.

In the last 8 years, God has shown me tiny glimpses of what He’s doing through my friend’s death. Little reminders that He is working, and that help me to trust Him, and reassure me that He indeed is good….even when I can’t see it. I pray that God will give you faith to trust and believe, even when it doesn’t make sense.

I’m am praying for you, grieving with you, and trusting God’s truths will be a healing balm to your soul!
Stephen

When one of my ninth grade students died in a car accident outside our school, I think the best resource I found was Rebecca Springer’s book, Beyond Heaven’s Gate. This book is telling the experience of a person who was in a coma. Whether it’s true or not, it made me look forward to Heaven for the first time. I actually felt somewhat jealous of the student who died–not because I hated life. But because Heaven was suddenly so much more enticing.
http://www.soulation.org Jonalyn

M,

I think it’s good that you’re wrestling with the very definition of love, what it means to love someone and allow them to die.

Perhaps it would help to wonder what ways God could be loving while allowing death. What do you know of God and his ways that would make death less bitter?

I’m very glad you are pushing into God’s attributes, questioning what you’ve believed before and wondering.

In my own struggle to face death and meaningless suffering I’ve found the one thing I want, more than anything else, is to know I’m not alone in this pain.

I do, of course, want the pain to end, too. But if it cannot end, I want to know i have someone in the pain with me.

Do you think this is what “the fellowship of suffering” might mean in Philippians 2?
Dana

Thank you Jonalyn. Today I go to volunteer at a friend’s home. She is the mother of 10 – the eldest child is 16 years old. She is dying of cancer. Thinking of her death and the aftermath in her family’s life is just overwhelming.

Fellowship of suffering, indeed. Thank you.

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